What the FY2027 request buys
Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project 1398 of PE 0601153N. This is the budget justification's own description of work that has not happened yet — the one thing no other level of the budget carries.
- Continue research into Atmospheric Processes. The objective of this effort is to improve our understanding of complex atmospheric processes involving multiple scales in time and space and explore new, innovative strategies for observing, representing, and predicting the atmosphere. Efforts in this area encompass processes in the atmosphere, processes in coupled environmental systems (e.g. land/wave/ocean/ice/atmosphere), aerosol processes, and processes related to accurately estimating forecast uncertainty. Furthermore; this thrust encompasses projects aimed at effectively utilizing novel computational platforms or techniques to enable improved understanding or heretofore unobtainable accuracy of atmospheric forecasts. - Continue research into Environmental Sensing. The overall objective is to increase our understanding in the areas necessary to obtain remote sensing measurement capabilities for battlespace environment constituents and phenomena that are important for environmental situational awareness and for driving battlespace environment models, but heretofore have either not been measured by remote sensing or have not been measured to the required accuracy. This entails research in several areas, including: improved understanding of the specific phenomenology to be probed by remote sensing or that impacts what is being remotely sensed, the creation of new sensors, and the generation of models to map from what is observed to what is required by a human or model. Efforts in this area will improve the understanding of physical processes and remotely sensed signatures of oceanographic, atmospheric, littoral, and inland domains to include - but not limited to - bare soil and vegetation-covered terrain, ocean wave and current dynamics, bio-optical characterization, and the air-sea interface. It will also explore improved understanding of environmentally impacted sensing related to tactical sensors and surveillance systems. - Continue efforts into the improvement of the basic understanding of physical and biological oceanographic processes on space and time scales of Naval interest in Oceanographic Process. Emphasis is on improved measurement and numerical based prediction. The following are some of the objectives in this research area. First is to quantify and understand important oceanographic processes that lead to the development of ocean dynamic models from global to submesoscale scales, and to develop methods for evaluating and validating the accuracy of models at these various scales. - Continue research into Geosciences Processes to understand the processes that generate and modify the shape, structure, biogeochemical, physical, and mechanical properties of the fluid-sediment bottom boundary layer through all areas of Naval relevance from deep water to on the beach. Research efforts in this area address an understanding of predictive model approaches both in representing the physics of seabed material and representing the influences of uncertainty in the seabed physical properties. - Continue research into Data Assimilation Process to exploit environmental sensing data to make optimal estimates to enable numerical model predictions, estimate individual environmental parameters, and provide the rigorous uncertain in these. These efforts will enable environmental sensing to be transformed into forecasts for Navy application. Areas of investigation include characterizing errors in observations and in models, the exploration of novel data assimilation techniques for the battlespace environment, the incorporation of novel means of sensing, and the theory required to make battlespace environment data assimilation computationally tractable. This area covers the seabed, littoral, ocean, waves, ice, land surface, atmosphere, and middle atmosphere, and interactions in coupled systems. - Continue research efforts into Middle Atmosphere Processes to support measurements and modeling in the middle atmosphere (stratosphere and mesosphere) with the goal of understanding predictability on scales from hours to multi-decadal. Further areas of research in stratospheric aerosols to understand its interaction with radiation and assess its importance for Navy missions shall be conducted. The final area covered in this area supports satellite measurements in this region, including temperature, aerosols, and chemical constituents for use in process studies and comparison with models.
Funding increase from FY 2026 to FY 2027 is due to increased research in atmospheric processes, environmental sensing, and data assimilation.
FY2026: the year under way
Prior-year accomplishments and current-year plans from the same exhibit. Context for the FY2027 plan, not a series — an activity partitions its project exactly in the request year, but can under-cover it in earlier years.
- Continue research into Atmospheric Processes to improve understanding of complex atmospheric processes across scales, exploring innovative strategies for observing, representing, and predicting. Encompasses atmospheric processes, coupled systems (land/wave/ocean/ice/atmosphere), aerosols, and forecast uncertainty. Includes projects utilizing novel computational platforms to enhance understanding or accuracy. - Continue research into Environmental Sensing to enhance remote sensing capabilities for battlespace environment constituents and phenomena, crucial for situational awareness and driving models. This involves understanding phenomenology, creating new sensors, and generating models mapping observations to requirements. Efforts improve understanding of physical processes and signatures of oceanographic, atmospheric, littoral, and inland domains (soil, vegetation, waves, bio-optics, air-sea interface), and environmentally impacted sensing. - Continue efforts into Oceanographic Process for improved understanding of physical/biological processes on Naval scales, emphasizing measurement and prediction. Objectives: quantify/understand processes leading to dynamic models (global to submesoscale),and develop methods for model validation. - Continue research into Geosciences Processes to understand processes generating/modifying the fluid-sediment bottom boundary layer across Naval areas. Research addresses predictive model approaches representing seabed physics and uncertainty influences. - Continue research into Data Assimilation Process to exploit environmental sensing data for optimal estimates, enabling numerical predictions, parameter estimation, and uncertainty quantification. Transforms sensing into forecasts. Investigates error characterization, novel techniques, incorporating new sensing, and tractable theory. Covers seabed, littoral, ocean, waves, ice, land, atmosphere, coupled systems. - Continue research efforts into Middle Atmosphere Processes supporting measurements/modeling (stratosphere/mesosphere) to understand predictability (hours to decades). Further research: stratospheric aerosols' interaction with radiation, assessing Navy mission importance. Supports satellite measurements (temperature, aerosols, constituents) for process studies/model comparison.
Three years, and no five-year plan
An R-2A activity publishes the prior year, the current year and the budget year. The FYDP outyears exist at project and program-element level and are deliberately absent here rather than inferred. Estimate types are colored and never summed into one figure.
| Fiscal Year | Estimate Type | Amount ($M) |
|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | Actual | 19.9 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 25.8 |
| FY2027 | Request | 31.3 |
This activity is 27% of project 1398's FY2027 request and 6.0% of PE 0601153N's. In the request year the activities under a project sum to it exactly; in the current year they under-cover it in about 9% of cases, so an activity's delta can legitimately exceed its parent's and the two must not be compared row to row.
7 activities in project 1398
Every R-2A line of this project, largest FY2027 request first. Linked where the activity has enough of its own narrative to carry a page; the rest are shown in full on the project page.